March 4, 2012

Frogspawn and lapwings :-)

A pretty ‘full on’ day and masses of house related paperwork prevented blogging last night, not to mention several cans of lager that I’d found in the old Thomson. The old Thomson being or classic 1971 caravan that we drag around festivals in the summer http://www.thomson-caravans.co.uk/index.htm, not that we’ll likely be doing much of that this year with a house to build. Having said that I’m working on the swineherd for Rockness in June http://www.rockness.co.uk/ 🙂

And having just seen that Dave Clarke, Japanese Popstars, Jack le Cont, Zane Low, Mylo and Kassidy have been added to an already spectacular line up I’m considering a second mortgage 🙂 or is it third 😦

Anyway I was cleaning out and airing the trusty caravan with a view to possibly storing some stuff in it, stuff we’d been dragging out of the ‘wee hoose’ to make it look bigger 🙂 During this operation which involved opening all the windows and binning some of last years cr4p I found a case of beer left over from our last outing in August 2011 http://www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk/ . It was rapidly approaching its sell by date so I thought I’d better drink it, well some of it at least 🙂

Saturday

So where was I ?? well the forecast lied once more, it was supposed to stay dry until lunchtime, and when I arose I believed it so foolishly broke open the ‘Farm oxide’ for the roof

to christen my sons paint stirrer 🙂 Has every schoolboy made a paint stirrer for his dad 🙂 The tool he’d fabricated in ‘tech’ did a fine job on the end of my cordless drill, but no sooner had I got a nice even green hue in the tin than the rain started 😦 Not much, hardly any in fact but enough to put an end to roof work, or at least glossing the roof.

Whilst I was busy doing, or at least trying to do a ‘facelift’ on the roof I’d sent my ‘helpers’ on a mission,

one they attacked with gusto.

Over the last twenty years Arnish has become the repository of several makeshift trailers made out of caravan chassis and car back axles. Having served their purpose they’ve been abandoned in the long grass to become a hazard and eyesore so I sent the boys off to remove the wood from them so we could burn it, then I’d lift them out of the ground with Lachie’s telehandler . Much to my surprise they managed to remove one on their own and drag it up to the house for dismantling.

Added to the old trailers littered around the car park were a Land Rover back and some scrap off the croft. All went onto Lachie’s excellent trailer ready for carriage to the local ‘Steptoe’ 🙂

The weather started to improve, Bracken and her seven piglets decided to go for a wander off the croft down the road and we finished cutting up the larger trailers with a grinder.

It was now warm and dry enough to at least do some stone painting on the walls and a little prep work on the northern side of the roof. The north facing side required only a little work despite being painted at the same time as the southern aspect, it was just much cooler when the paint went on.

With me up on the roof I left the boys to cut and gather bedding

whilst Molly kept a lookout 🙂

By the time we’d done all that the day was closing in and painting difficult so we called it a day outside.

Sunday

Surprisingly today’s forecast was pretty spot on, I didn’t for one moment believe we’d see snow today, especially after it being so mild and spotting the first frog spawn on Friday. Sure enough the snow forecast by UKWind was deposited on the Storr and Trotternish ridge but I certainly wasn’t convinced Raasay would see any. So just after feeding, around 8:00am and before breakfast we started painting, not the roof but the north east gable.

Having worked up an appetite breakfast beckoned an hour or so later but to my dismay it started snowing during my ‘full Scottish’ 😦

Ahh well, plan B, off up to the new house site for some fencing, past this unconcerned hind in fantastic condition and heavy with calf.

And this will be the easy way to put a strainer post in 🙂

Pushing them in with the Telehandler wasn’t an option for this one, hard packed broken rock down two feet

literally 🙂 to solid rock.

So we made a large hole and concreted the post into position to take a 16’ gate.

The day had, just like the forecast said, turned into a pure peach and I was kicking myself for not doing the roof but we had things to do and the boys were all back at school tomorrow.

The drive south with the boys and back was magnificent and like a wildlife safari, the snow having been burned off the western side of the Storr was still in evidence on the northern slopes of Raasay’s highest hill, Dun Caan.

The first lapwings were seen at Glame along with a couple of kestrels and the Beallach Ruadh (red pass) was, well red 🙂

As were the red deer

at some place with a name that sounds like ‘lorn hornat’ and means something about it being flat and straight, well it may be straight but it’s certainly not flat 🙂

Morning Cecilia, what a great day all the pigs had yesterday, Bracken never came to be fed she was so happy to be out and the others never turned up until 17:30, they’re usually hanging around the gate an hour or so earlier 🙂

Frogspawn lapwings and gravid does. I wish I was in the country instead of cooped up here in that Lundun 😦

I’m next due a fix of Scotland at the end of April.

It’s just beginning to get light in the o’dark thirty mornings here and the birds are starting to sing up the dawn chorus as I go to work. It will be proper light by the end of the month and then they’ll muck about with the clocks and it will be dark again. 😦